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An Early Theocritus Book (P. Oxy. 2064 + 3548): Placing Fragments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. W. Bulloch
A. W. Bulloch
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

In 1930 Hunt and Johnson published the remains of P. Oxy. 2064, a roll containing at least some of the poems attributed to Theocritus and dating from the late second century A.d. (A. S. Hunt and J. Johnson, Two Theocritus Papyri [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1930], 3–19). The papyrus was important, even though very fragmentary (no column is preserved complete, and very few lines are wholly intact), since at its time of publication it was one of the three earliest witnesses to the text of Theocritus. Fragments of other early papyri of Theocritus have been published since then, but P. Oxy. 2064 has remained the most important known witness prior to the fifth century because of the spread of poems which the extant fragments show it to have contained. No other papyrus allows us to reconstruct the contents of an early Theocritus book to such an extent. In 1983 the editors of Oxyrhynchus Papyri published a further collection of Theocritus fragments from various papyri (P. Oxy. 3545–3552), among which were more remains from P. Oxy. 2064 edited by P. J. Parsons under the number P. Oxy. 3548 (Oxyrhynchus Papyri L [Graeco-Roman Memoirs, 70: London, 1983], 105–22).

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , December 1987 , pp. 505 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

1 Hunt and Johnson (p. 3) had already remarked that the order of the poems in this roll, with the exception of the placing of Id. 5, most closely resembled that of the medieval‘family’ of MSS identified by Ahrens and Wendel (and subsequently Gallavotti) as the Laurentian, as against the orders of the Ambrosian or Vatican groups. The information now provided by the P. Oxy. 3548 fragments that Id. 8 was followed by 9 and 10 confirms this further; this roll is still our earliest surviving witness with any extensive evidence concerning the order of the poems (along with P. Oxy. 3547, also from the second century, with Id. 3 and 4 in sequence), and the conventional order of modern texts, which follows the Vatican family, still has no ancient support.

2 I had also considered several other remote possibilities: 22.215, 24.111, 25.110 or Moschus 3.47. But PJP2 remarks that none of these will fit the traces. Perhaps 15.123–5 should be considered:

3 In Id. 2, the only poem from 1–11 of modern editions not yet attested in the papyrus, vv. 35–6 are a possibility. PJP2 notes: ‘8.13–14 is certainly satisfactory from the point of view of spacing, but I can't say the fibre correspondences much recommend it.’

4 11.54–5 can also be excluded because of the tau after KC. And in any case the spacing seems wrong: in v 54 would probably not have been directly over in v. 55.

5 From the poems not yet attested in this papyrus, or indeed in any papyrus to date, a possibility is Id. 23.44–7:… Here the mu in μοι of v. 45 following the δέ, however, would not give the tail of which PJP 2 reports traces in line 2 of the papyrus.

6 It is worth noting that I have been unable to find any instance of the sequence πΕπΕ in the text of the Idylls. If the first pi is sound (cf. PJP 2 reported above), this could indicate that line 1 at least is comment. Epigram 21 is an epitaph for Archilochus; the poet's name appears in the accusative, not the genitive, in the text, but the of fr. 52 could perhaps be part of a heading or marginal note to the poem.

7 I.e. with tau suprascript to eta. The fragment was not included in the plates published by Hunt and Johnson, but see Kathleen McNamee, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri and Ostraca (Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, Supplement 3: 1981), 79.

8 I have noticed one other possible fit among the Idylls already attested in the papyrus, at Id. 8.2–4: corresponds well to the traces in line 1 of the fragment (before the a is a ‘medium-long descender’), but the supralinear comment would be problematical: the first few letters and some middle letters of Id. 8.2–4 are preserved in frr. 28 E etc. (Ox. Pap. L, p. 115), and there is no trace of any supralinear comments to the lines there- in fr. 53 would therefore have to be part of a short, probably single-word, gloss, presumably to , and it is difficult to see what this might be. (For another possible example of a semi-legible tau resembling semi-legible phi see below on fr. 56 line 3.)

9 Note that traces of the column immediately adjacent to the opening lines of Id. 3, but with a comment spilling over from the end of Id. 7 (which preceded Id. 3), have now been identified in fr. 28C (Ox. Pap. L, p. 113)

10 Id. 11.50–3 also have δπο and αν on successive lines, but there is no hypsilon before the delta and the alignment of the lines looks wrong.

11 I do not understand line 2 oAi if the gap after the iota is correctly read. It should perhaps be noted that Id. 25.230 ends with the phrase